If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.
If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.
And sure, I know if you eat this way you'll die. So? If you don't eat this way you're still going to die. Why not die happy?
The crazy thing is that when we go to somebody's house, what's better than looking at their bookshelves? Nobody's ever going to say, "Can I see the index to your Kindle?" It's so depressing and so unsexy. Sure, it's there, but nobody is going to get excited by that.
If I'm given the opportunity of writing, directing and acting in the same film I would love to do it again. It's something I don't think that anyone else is doing in the country at this level. . . not many people are doing it in the world. I think if you check that out and find it's quite accurate, there's only a handful of people that actually are doing it.
I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically.